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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22730029">Grief That Does Not Speak</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/solomonara/pseuds/solomonara'>solomonara</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Chaos Theory [9]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Batman - All Media Types, Red Robin (Comics), Robin (Comics), Young Justice (Cartoon)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Canonical Character Death, Don't copy to another site, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hurt No Comfort, Minor Character Death, Off-screen death, Thoughts about death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 17:01:39</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,326</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22730029</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/solomonara/pseuds/solomonara</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Tim copes – tries to cope – with the deaths of his parents.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Chaos Theory [9]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/970407</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>95</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Grief That Does Not Speak</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Many thanks to <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/DragonSorceress22">DragonSorceress22</a> for her excellent beta work, and also to <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/njw">njw </a> for saying exactly what I needed to hear when I was dithering about edits on this one.</p>
<p>Title is from Macbeth (4.3):<br/>Give sorrow words. The grief that does not speak<br/>Whispers the o'er-fraught heart and bids it break.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p>
<p>
  <em>Tim, I'm sorry.</em>
</p>
<p>It was poison, Bruce said. Poisoned water, when he thought everything was handled. Janet and Jack Drake had thought they were saved, and now they were both dead.</p>
<p>
  <em>There was nothing I could do. No antidote.</em>
</p>
<p>Tim hadn't gone. He'd been working on Project Hessian. He'd thought he was close to a breakthrough, but it had turned out to be another false trail. He should have gone.</p>
<p>
  <em>Tim, say something. It's okay to be angry, to have questions. I'll tell you anything you want to know.</em>
</p>
<p>It made the internet that night. The papers printed it the next morning. Tim was the sixteen-year-old heir to everything his parents had left behind.</p>
<p>
  <em>Anything you need, Tim. Anything at all.</em>
</p>
<p>The man who had done it was locked up. His parents had gone to Haiti of their own volition. There was no one to blame, unless Tim wanted to blame Batman, but Bruce was blaming himself enough for both of them. Tim wouldn't be so illogical.</p>
<p>He didn't know how to plan a funeral, though.</p>
<p>He didn't really know how life insurance worked.</p>
<p>He didn't know if he'd be able to keep living on his own (because face it, he'd been on his own since he was twelve, his parents never around) legally. Now that the courts were watching. Now that there was an estate to be settled.</p>
<p>The last thing he'd said to his parents was a curt "k" in a text conversation. The last thing they'd said to him was "Extending our trip a few more weeks – exciting prospects in the Caribbean" from Jack and "Tell the housekeeper" from Janet.</p>
<p>
  <em>We're so sorry for your loss</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>My condolences</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Anything we can do</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Thoughts and prayers</em>
</p>
<p>And on and on, from people he'd never met, people who'd never spoken to him before. Luckily, he learned quickly that a simple "thank you" was sufficient, no matter how dead his tone when he said it. He left the rest up to Bruce.</p>
<p>Steph and Babs checked in with him more than once. So did the Team. Jason stayed near him at the funeral, implacable while Jack and Janet's friends – business associates – eyed him, wondering who the interloper was. Tim just nodded, gave them all his best society face – solemn but not overcome – and another of his limitless supply of thank-yous, and endured.</p>
<p>It wouldn't be that different, he thought when it was all over. Might be a little strange actually knowing where his parents were all the time, though.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Bruce benched him. He said Tim needed time to grieve and to process. Tim pointed out that Bruce's response to Dick's need to grieve and process had been to invent Robin. This argument did not help his situation for some reason.</p>
<p>Bruce probably expected him to stay at the manor; Tim practically lived there anyway, when he wasn't at Babs' place helping with the extensive renovations required after her injury. Bruce had even mentioned something about legal guardianship and arrangements along those lines, but Tim had just looked at him with dry, bloodshot eyes, and Bruce had muttered "We'll figure it out later." Tim would have to remember that trick.</p>
<p>For now, he went home.</p>
<p>Well, he went back to his house. It had that stale, empty smell it always had. He'd thought maybe it would be different, coming home to an empty house and knowing it would be permanently empty. But there was no sign of his parents here, only of their absence, and that was the bulk of what Tim had of them anyway.</p>
<p>On some level he acknowledged that he was numb, and that that numbness could slide into something worse, something harder to claw his way back from. So he went into his parents' bedroom.</p>
<p>This had been inviolate ground since time immemorial. Tim, of course, had poked around in it a few times before, trying to find some trick or key that would unlock his parents' regard. If there was one, he figured they must have taken it with them when they traveled.</p>
<p>The bed was neatly made, the bedspread a pale, neutral blue-grey. His fingers squeaked when he ran them along the polished top of the dresser. In the master bath cosmetics, grooming tools, colognes, and perfumes were neatly sorted into little baskets and cubbies. The walk-in closet was a tomb of suits and dresses shrouded in dry-cleaning bags. He wanted very badly to say that his parents weren't here, but they were. This was them, just as the familiar absence filling the rest of the house was them.</p>
<p>He went back to his own room.</p>
<p>If he were to die, he thought, people could come here to cry about it. They could look at the skateboard shoved half under the desk chair, an accident waiting to happen, and shake their heads and think <em>Oh, Tim</em>, and choke back a sob as it hit them all at once. It was damn decent of him, probably, to have left a tangle of headphones and charging cables and a laptop with its screen dissected and half-repaired right in the middle of his unmade bed. <em>He'll never finish it now,</em> they'd think.</p>
<p>He sat gingerly on the edge of his bed and plucked at the nest of cords, listlessly poking around for an end that would help him start unraveling the knot. He gave up after mere seconds. He needed something more distracting, something that took his whole body even if he couldn't give it his whole mind right now. Bruce, he was pretty sure, had been wrong to bench him.</p>
<p>Tim had been pretty sure about things before, though, and had been mistaken. He'd respect Bruce's decision. He was feeling so far removed from himself that maybe a mask would be a bad idea, anyway. But he had found a way to cope with the silence and the emptiness and the <em>wanting</em> before, without needing a mask or a cape or a belt full of tricks.</p>
<p>It had been a while since he'd pulled his camera out, but it was waiting for him on a shelf in his closet, tucked into its case and ready to go as soon as he changed the battery pack out. Once upon a time, a boy had taken a camera very like this one (he'd upgraded since then) and found happiness hanging from fire escapes and sneaking onto rooftops.</p>
<p>Then Nightwing had vanished and Robin had died and Tim had been beaten and Batgirl had been shot.</p>
<p>But before that… yes, Tim thought he might have been happy, then. So he took his camera, and he went.</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>Damian paced the study, looking over and over at the clock not for the time, but because he was considering going down to the Cave.</p>
<p>He was permitted down there unaccompanied, now. He had even begun some rudimentary training with his father. But each time he broached to subject of accompanying Batman on his missions, or even on basic patrol, he was denied.</p>
<p>He was beginning to wonder if it was a test, because Batman <em>needed</em> the help. Batgirl was no longer a player, Robin was benched, Todd showed no inclination to take up his old position, and Nightwing… ha. That left Batman out there with no backup aside from Spoiler, and she wasn't even out tonight because she had an <em>algebra</em> test early in the morning, of all the absurd excuses. Batman was on his own more and more often these days. So why wouldn't he use Damian, a trained and ready resource?</p>
<p>Unless he was waiting for Damian to seize the position himself, to show he could take initiative.</p>
<p>Damian had been with his father for eight months now, though, and he had doubts that he'd operate that way. Then again, the League would. The League could keep up a ruse for far longer than eight months to make a point in training. And Batman <em>was</em> League-trained, in part.</p>
<p>Damian stopped in front of the grandfather clock and stared up at the unmoving hands. Tonight, Batman was out investigating a shipping line Penguin might be involved in. If Damian opened that clock, he wouldn't be able to keep himself from going out there to assist, so he had to make a decision now.</p>
<p>Todd was holed up in his room studying for the GED. Part of Damian wanted to ask his advice; Todd knew Damian's father well, and he would not think less of Damian for coming to him with the question. However, part of him also knew what Todd would say: wait. Don't go out there. Not yet.</p>
<p>And just like that, Damian knew he did not <em>want</em> to be told to wait yet again. His mind was made up. He opened the clock. He went to the Cave. He borrowed what armor would fit him, pieces of Robin from over the years slotted together like a jigsaw: the heavier armored leggings Tim had introduced, the black cape as opposed to one of the yellow iterations, sturdy boots and the belt Jason had worn rather than the bandoliers Tim had been favoring lately… in no time at all, he was ready.</p>
<p><em>I </em>am<em> ready</em>, he reassured himself. <em>I will prove it.</em></p>
<p> </p>
<p>Finding Batman was no trouble. For shipping investigations, it was always the docks. For Batman, it was always the highest, most shadowed corner with an unobstructed sightline. In this case, that meant the roof of a warehouse with a view of a freight yard where far more people were moving around than might be considered normal at this hour. Damian scaled the building silently and approached the shadowed corner made by a stairwell enclosure without making a sound.</p>
<p>Batman was not in the shadow.</p>
<p>Damian had only a moment to feel confusion before a heavy, gauntleted hand fell on his shoulder. He spun and jumped back at the same time, running into the wall of the stairwell.</p>
<p>Batman loomed in front of him and slowly crossed his arms. "What do you think you're doing?" he asked, his voice low. It didn't sound angry, but only because anger wasn't an attribute you could assign to granite. Damian straightened.</p>
<p>"Assisting you."</p>
<p>"Go home."</p>
<p>"No."</p>
<p>For a moment, Damian was certain he was about to face Batman's wrath. Then Batman sighed and unfolded his arms. He crouched in front of Damian. "I understand that you want to help. But you are not ready to work with a partner."</p>
<p>"How am I to learn if you won't <em>teach</em> me, then?" Damian demanded.</p>
<p>"You <em>are</em> learning. When we train in the Cave—"</p>
<p>"Once a week, when you have time and are not exhausted from compensating for your other 'partners'' shortcomings!"</p>
<p>Batman passed a hand over his eyes like he wanted to pinch the bridge of his nose but was thwarted by the cowl. "Yes, I've been busy, but none of that is their fault. Not because of any 'shortcoming,'" he said sternly.</p>
<p>Damian scowled and crossed his arms over his chest in unconscious mimicry of Batman's earlier pose. The hard line of Batman's frown softened slightly.</p>
<p>"You need more training, and I'm sorry I haven't been around to give it to you."</p>
<p>"More training?" Damian echoed, nonplussed. He could feel his face heating. "I am not some windfall child you do your best to teach, relying on their innate ability and pluck," he hissed. "I am already what you require, trained just as you were. I am the partner you have always needed by your side. You have been <em>making do </em>with these pale imitations, but <em>I</em> am already what you always intended Robin to be!"</p>
<p>Batman was shaking his head. "You don't understand." He reached out to take Damian's shoulder, but Damian's hands came up automatically, ready to block. Batman dropped his hand. "I never intended Robin to be anything," he said. He pointed at the symbol on Damian's borrowed tunic. "It's shaped by the one who wears it. It has very little to do with me."</p>
<p>Damian scoffed, the exhalation laden with skepticism. "You're a fool if you believe that."</p>
<p>Batman sighed heavily and stood. "Maybe. But that doesn't change my mind. You shouldn't be out here. But," he went on. "I'm not sending you back across the city alone wearing that. So tonight, you'll learn about stakeouts and speaking to informants."</p>
<p>Damian straightened. "I— truly? I can stay?"</p>
<p>"You will do <em>exactly</em> as I say," Batman intoned.</p>
<p>"Of course," Damian said quickly.</p>
<p>"That includes retreating if I give the order."</p>
<p>Damian's assent was slower this time. "If I must."</p>
<p>"Good. We'll wait for the action to die down out there, then I'll be paying my informant a visit. You'll listen, but stay out of sight."</p>
<p>"You will find my stealth skills more than equal to the task."</p>
<p>"We'll see. For now, pay attention," Batman said with a nod to where a shipping crate was being unloaded from a cargo ship that had been docked this entire time. Damian whirled to watch, crouching in the shadow. Batman joined him. "We'll talk about suitable gear for you when we get home."</p>
<p>Damian glanced up at him, eyes wide. A suit of his own? He struggled to keep the pleasure from his face. He had made the right decision after all. "Of course," he said. Then, after a pause, much more quietly, "Thank you, Father."</p>
<p>Batman rested a hand on Damian's back and this time Damian didn't flinch.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>It made a great picture. Tim shot it, adjusted the lens, shot it again. It didn't change: Damian, dressed in pieces of Dick, of Jason, of Tim, crouched on a roof, side-by-side with Batman, the black of their capes running together. Batman's fatherly hand on Robin's shoulder.</p>
<p>Tim packed the camera away and carefully made his way down from the rooftop two warehouses away, back to street level, away from the docks, out of the city. When he made it to his house he climbed through his bedroom window out of habit, his body working on autopilot while his mind furiously tried to prevent him from breaking down into vision-impairing sobs.</p>
<p>He closed the window behind him, kicked off his shoes, and sat down on the floor with his back against the bed. He dropped his head into his hands. <em>Okay. You can cry now.</em></p>
<p>The heels of his hands pressed into his eye sockets, his fingers reaching for his hair. A snarl pulled at his mouth, teeth clenched on whatever was trying to heave itself out of his chest. A harsh breath, and then another, but that was all.</p>
<p>His hands dropped to the carpet on either side of him. Where were his tears? His parents were dead, Batman didn't need him, his future was uncertain and he was <em>alone</em>.</p>
<p>His next inhale ached and whistled through his throat and he tried to inhale again even though his lungs were already full. He exhaled on a low moan and then pulled the air back with several short, dry sobs, hugging himself to hold his chest together. He was crying with every part of his body except his eyes.</p>
<p>His shoulders twitched inward, his face screwed up as though in pain even though physically, he was fine. It wasn't a panic attack. He was just trying to get the ache inside of him outside. Only it wasn't working; no matter how much his eyes burned, there were no tears.</p>
<p>He dragged his knees up to his chest and curled forward to rest his forehead on them, arms circling round. His body kept shaking like he was crying, but anyone watching would have accused him of faking. Maybe he was. Maybe he was trying to fool even himself, because what kind of monster couldn't even—</p>
<p>
  <em>Bzzt bzzz</em>
</p>
<p>Tim turned his head wearily to the side to eye his phone where it had fallen out of his pocket onto the floor. His doorbell app was alerting him that someone was on the front porch. The phone felt like it weighed about ten pounds when he picked it up to look at the feed.</p>
<p>Jason stood on his porch, holding one of Alfred's cloth tote bags. Panic sliced through Tim like ice. He couldn't let Jason see him like this. But— he hadn't turned on any lights. Jason didn't even need to know he was there. If he just stayed very still…</p>
<p>On the screen, Jason frowned and jabbed the bell again. Even though his bedroom was on the second floor and nowhere near the front door, Tim clutched the phone to himself to muffle the vibration. <em>I'm not home. Go away</em>.</p>
<p>Jason waited a few moments, shifting the bag – it looked heavy – from one hand to the other. Then he started picking the lock.</p>
<p><em>What? What? Who does that?</em> Tim demanded silently. <em>Oh right, all of us. </em>His parents' house didn't have anything like the security of Bruce's, or of any Bat property. Sure enough, moments later Tim heard Jason call,</p>
<p>"Tim? Don't freak out, it's me. I'm coming in."</p>
<p>Tim chucked the camera case under his bed, put his phone in Do Not Disturb mode, and dove into bed. He muffled a curse when he kicked the corner of the laptop he'd left there, and shoved it aside to burrow under the covers, heaping enough on top of him that it would disguise any irregularities in his breathing. He closed his eyes and tried to inhale and exhale slowly and evenly. Maybe Jason would just leave whatever he'd brought and go home.</p>
<p>Just when he'd started to think that was exactly what had happened, his door opened a crack. The light from the hall fell right on his face; he could tell that the room had gotten brighter even with his eyes closed. He made sure his face stayed relaxed even as he could sense a body drawing nearer.</p>
<p>He heard a soft sigh. He couldn't be sure, but Jason seemed <em>very </em>close, maybe even crouched by the bed. Tim made sure to breathe deeply enough that Jason wouldn't think he was dead. A moment later, his shadow passed over Tim's face and he left the room, closing the door behind him.</p>
<p>Tim played possum a while longer, then slowly edged his eyes open, snaked one arm out of the blankets, and tugged his phone close. The doorbell app showed Jason leaving, careful to re-lock the door behind him.</p>
<p>Tim heaved a huge sigh of relief that almost turned into another sobbing fit when his breath caught on the lump in his throat.</p>
<p><em>Get it together, Tim</em>. He had to be stronger than this. He <em>had</em> to. What if Jason had found him here on the floor of his bedroom, a tearless wreck? Bad enough that it was Jason, of all people, but what if he'd told Bruce? Bruce would sentence Tim to more time off and meanwhile Damian would weasel his way into Tim's spot. He wouldn't even have to fight Tim for it, the way he so often threatened to do.</p>
<p>No. Tim <em>would</em> be fine, he knew he would. That was how these things worked. And maybe he was some kind of strange creature that couldn't cry over his own parents, that got more upset seeing someone else wearing his clothes, but no one else needed to know that.</p>
<p>And if he would be fine eventually, there was no harm in <em>acting</em> fine now. Until it was true. If Jason reported back, all he could say was that he'd gone to Tim's house and found him sound asleep. That was healthy. A good start.</p>
<p>Tomorrow, Tim would go back to the manor. He'd thank Alfred for whatever was in that sack Jason had left. He would talk to Bruce about that legal stuff he'd mentioned. The… guardianship thing (<em>just breathe, it's fine</em>). He'd visit Babs, get the homework he'd missed from Steph. And he would be fine.</p>
<p>He had to be.</p>
<p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>That's the end of what I have prepped for Chaos Theory. I'm working on a nice long, plotty piece for the next installment, but it'll be some time before it's ready to go. Feel free to bother me on <a href="https://solomonara.tumblr.com/">tumblr</a> in the meantime :)</p></blockquote></div></div>
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